The Merchant’s Tale Context Flashcards
(17 cards)
Chaucer
1340 - 1400 (ish)
Middle - Early Modern English
Edward III - Medieval Era / Audience / Reader / Reception
Lived in London, a Courtier and Ambassador
Dabbled in the Merchant Trade and he Travelled a lot Abroad
Married to a Distant Royal Female which increased his Status
‘The Father of English Literature’ - He introduced over 2000 words (Shakespeare was 1500!)
- By the age of 16 Chaucer was employed in the service of the wife of the king’s son, Lionel, later Duke of Clarence
- In the 1360s-70s he was sent abroad on diplomatic missions to France, Genoa, Florence and Lombardy
- 1388 Chaucer went on a pilgrimage
- In 1362, the English language was used for the first time in English Parliament following animosity with France & an increased English Nationalism
- Chaucer’s audiences of educated friends (urban courtiers & higher aristocracy) appreciated his literary talent
The context of The Canterbury Tales (The setup, The Wife of Bath, the marriage group, the intended audience, relevance to society)
Chaucer’s narrative poem The Merchant’s Tale, nestled within the “marriage group” of The Canterbury Tales (an epic poem) , forms a cynical counterpoint to the Wife of Bath’s sexual assertiveness, exposing the dissonance between marital idealism and transactional, power-driven unions that would resonate with Chaucer’s courtly and clerical audience.
- A Pilgrimage to Canterbury, Kent, to the Shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral
The Pilgrims Gather at the Tabard Inn
Each Pilgrim tell Two Tales, One There, One Back (they didn’t though, because Chaucer didn’t finish) and the Best Wins a Prize
The Prologue introduces each of the Pilgrims
- “From every shires ende of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende”: group of pilgrims from different social classes setting off from Tabard Inn one spring day from Londont to shrine of St Thomas à Becket in Canterbury = horseback 4 days
- 95% population couldn’t read, so read aloud = rhyming, iambic couplets satisfyingly
- Chaucer introduces all his pilgrims in the general prologue in rough order of precedence, beginning with the Knight (brace, devout and unassuming - the perfect gentleman) and his party (his son, the Squire and their Yeoman servant), then the religious characters (the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar) then the Merchant, then down through social ranks (middle class, then lowly commoners, ending with two unashamedly corrupt servants of the church - the Summoner and Pardoner)
- The Merchant as secretive and devious (Chaucer doesn’t know his name, he is in debt but no-one knows why)
- He is described as ‘worthy’ x2 = same as January (throws question on his honourableness when January is shown clearly not to be)
- All the tales are quite simple - medieval audiences did not expect original plots but rather clever as of telling stories
- Courtly romances: love affairs for the upper classes, unrequited love from a distance, male lover suffering sleepless nights of anguish, writing poetry, serenading and performing brave feats of Nobel daring while beloved, untouchable Lady would sit or walk in her gardens and set lover impossible tasks
- fabliaux: extended jokes, often bawdy full of sexual innuendo
- fables: tales with a moral point, often animals as characters
- sermons: stories with moral message, dramatic storytelling and biblical/classical parallèles with a theme like gluttony, pride or avarice
- The Nun’s Priest’s Tale moral message, The Pardoner’s Tale highly dramatic, tales told by Knight & Squire rooted in courtly love while Miller & Reeve are bawdy & crude (2x women)
- Tale of Wife of Bath, the Clerk, the Merchant and the Franklin’s re all concerned with marriage: May as slightly similar to Wife of Bath and her prologue, contrasting ti Clerk’s Griselda and love & mutual respect of love of Franklin’s Tale
The Three Estates and the place of merchants
THE MERCHANT…Provides his own Prologue like every Pilgrim before his Tale
In General Prologue, he has the smallest introduction
The Feudal System / The Three Estates: Aristocracy / Gentry / Landowners / Nobility, Clergy / Catholic Church (Catholicism was National Religion, and the Church was very wealthy), Peasants
There was an increasing merchant class, although they wouldn’t be considered a class as themselves - they were mistrusted because they didn’t fit into the system and threatened wealth
Peasant Rebellions and Bubonic Plague also threatened the whole of Society
90% were illiterate - literature was written for a very narrow section of Society OR to be told by word of mouth (thus why the stories are written in rhyming couplets (a narrative poem), largely iambic and jaunty so they were memorable)
Chaucer borrowed from French and Latin in the speech of socially elevated characters as these were the languages of court and church: Januarie’s dialogue employs french vocabulary such as ‘heritage’ and ‘chartes’
WHILE MAY, of lower status, uses words from Old English: ‘wenche’ and ‘kepe’
The Feudal System / The Three Estates: Aristocracy / Gentry / Landowners / Nobility, Clergy / Catholic Church (Catholicism was National Religion, and the Church was very wealthy = full belief in the old testament)
Merchants experience increasing prosperity and markets in 14th century: merchants often richer than nobility, Chaucer perhaps suggesting Merchant has delusions of grandeur hoping to express through story of ‘courtly love’ and concept of ‘gentilesse’ but frequent mercantile language exposes real character
Merchants prospered as a result of the Hundred’s Years’ War
The death of ⅓ population from black death, particularly the lower classes, created more tensions as a powerful merchant class monopolised trade
The poem as an examination of class divisions
1381 peasant’s revolt, farmers pushed back against unfair practices = Chaucer as criticising pervasive attitudes towards class in negative portrayal of Merchant and Knight?
The English Language
Before the Norman Invasion, 1066, there was only Old English (Varied so Regionally that the North couldn’t understand the South)
William the Conqueror made the National Language French (the Court primarily spoke it, while the clergy spoke Latin)
1362, Edward III finally introduced Parliament and the Court to English, he was the First King to Speak English
Oxford and Cambridge, for example, set up 12th-13th century spoke an amalgamation of Latin, French and English
Expectations of age and wisdom
The tale mocks the medieval assumption that age equates to wisdom, as January’s senile lust and blindness—both literal and moral—render him foolish and vulnerable to deception.
Chaucer satirises the idea that old men were respected more as January is shown to have no wisdom - his selfishness makes him foolish and blind - and to be unrespectable in the eyes of Catholic doctrine.
The average life expectancy was 32 (swayed by infant mortality & death in childbirth) - January are about 60 which is quite old.
Courtly Love – its conventions and how this is satirised in the tale
The tale satirizes the conventions of courtly love—secret affairs, idealized women, and noble suffering—by transplanting them into a farcical fabliau setting, where Damian’s garden tryst with May ridicules the lofty language of romance.
Januarie believed in courtly love - An unrequited, pure love (not sexual) - a literary tradition that didn’t really happen - where a man would fall desperately in love with an unattainable (Married, Class Divides) woman and would perform acts of love to win her over
Petrarch - an Italian poet - invented the sonnet and was the father of ‘Courtly Love’
Courtly love: at a time when marriage was a matter of alliances and business, love was considered an irrelevance = wife chosen for dowry, but in poetry, courtly love was given a kind of quasi religious significance with the love of a Noble Lady leading the knight to perform selfless deeds of heroism
Satire of courtly love like “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
Sources of pear story is Boccaccio’s Decameron (ninth story told on the seventh day)
Damian still a typical lovesick knight, ‘ravysshed’ by love BUT this becomes dubious through depictions of his lechery
Fabliaux (similarities and surprising deviations in The Merchant’s Tale)
While The Merchant’s Tale aligns with fabliau traditions (satirically) through its bawdy humour, deception, and sexual trickery, its interweaving of biblical allusion and extended philosophical commentary adds a surprising depth and moral complexity to the form.
Fabliaux was popular among Chaucer’s audience and thus a listener would already have the sense that January might become a cuckold because he was familiar with the structure of the fabliaux. It makes his arrogance look even more ridiculous.
Fabliaux contain a moral message.
Chuacer may have been influenced by similar collections of fabliaux such as Boccaccio’s “The Decameron” written in early 14th century, featuring multiple tales in vernacular language
Differs from conventional fabliau as characters are from a range of classes/locations = designed to be accessible to and representative of all
Januarie as the ‘Senex amans’ = ancient lover
Dramatic irony created through an omniscient narrator creating humour, such as during the crude sexual encounter at the end in the garden
Multi-layered perspectives weaved through ambiguous narrators = blurs the lines between Chaucer’s view and social perspectives
Januarie’s garden, like other romance features in this tale, becomes modified by fabliau
A Baudy Story
A Popular Premise: An Old Man Foolishly in love with a Young Women and he would inevitably become a cuckhold
Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist who wrote the ‘The Decameron’, a major source for ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
Women in Marriage
In a society where women were legally and economically subordinate to their husbands, The Merchant’s Tale critiques this imbalance through May’s silent resistance and eventual subversion of January’s patriarchal control.
Women as the possession of men
Women as sinful is an ironic take on inherent sinfulness of woman (EVE & the Orginal Sin)
Male entitlement due to culture = Women would probably get married at about 12 or 13, a soon as they were fertile = bound to breed
Even more clear delineation between the power of men and women than the ‘Ideal Husband’. Women were property and had no power, increasing his estate and bearing him children.
In was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry young women, and to beat them
Women would probably get married at about 12 or 13 (when they are fertile).
The role of marriage in society (transactional / procreation / heritage): Marriage in the tale is depicted as a transactional institution intended for sexual satisfaction, procreation, and the continuation of lineage, with January seeking a young wife not for companionship but as a “paradis terrestre” and a vessel for his legacy.
Pavia
January was born in Pavia, a city in Lombardy.
Pavia was a place of commerce, but especially of prostitution & brothels.
January thus has a sordid association
Knights / status / wealth
Chivalrous - A Performative and Mannerly Code of Behaviour that Suggests An Inherent Respect of Women
The Chivalric Tradition Underpinned the Idea of the Kmight - Codes of Behvaiour around Integrity and Respect
January undermines these Ideas.
January’s status as a knight emphasizes how social prestige and material wealth fail to command respect or loyalty in marriage, as his senility and erotic delusions render his noble rank both comic and impotent.
Chivalrous - A Performative and Mannerly Code of Behaviour that Suggests An Inherent Respect of Women
The Chivalric Tradition Underpinned the Idea of the Knight - Codes of Behaviour around Integrity and Respect
January undermines these Ideas
Obsession with status shown through Placebo: Placebo exacerbates Januarie’s delusion = court-satire = facilitates sense of ego/superiority = ridiculous to an audience who can clearly see him as a foolish sycophant.
In traditional courtly tales, the writer idealises the knight (and ladies) as a paragon of virtue and purity
The sacrament of marriage
By ironically framing January’s motivations within the sacred language of the marriage sacrament, Chaucer highlights the dissonance between religious ideals and human desires, exposing how divine institutions are often co-opted for selfish ends.
Attitudes to marriage in the middle ages were influenced by the teaching of St Paul = marriage as legitimising sex: “it is better to marry than to burn” = and laws created by the church to regulate sexual conduct
St Paul created the idea of marital debt: drawing from Corinthians; “for the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does, likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does”
Januarie’s fixation on sex is a violation of the sacrament of marriage
The Catholic doctrine: temperance in life results in a path to heaven, so excessive pleasure is unholy
Chaucer satirises the idea that old men were respected more as January is shown to have no wisdom, and to be unrespectable in the eyes of Catholic doctrine.
Anti-feminist literature
Drawing from anti-feminist authorities like Theofrastus and Jerome, the tale parodies misogynistic tropes while subtly undermining them through May’s wit and agency, complicating its apparent endorsement of patriarchal suspicion.
St Paul, one of christ’s disciples and an early christian leader = thought women should be silent & submissive
St Jerome, 340-420, known for translating the bible into Latin, was considered a misogynistic authority on women = influenced anti-feminist writing = under guise of Theophrastus, wrote the Golden Book on Marriages, an anti-feminist work detailing the wickedness of wives
Christine de Pizan defends women in her ‘Epistre du Dieu d’Amours’, pointing out the discrepancy between courtly love, in which men suffer for unrequited love, and the tradition of misogynist literature. She also wrote ‘Le Livre de la Cité des Dames’ which defends women’s virtue.
Original Sin and the perception of women
Women were often viewed as morally weaker due to Eve’s role in the Fall; The Merchant’s Tale both exploits and critiques this view, portraying May as deceitful but also intelligent, navigating a world stacked against her.
Paradise (or the Garden of Eden) is an image that runs through TMT = reference to Genesis 3 = Eve’s Original Sin taking fruit from the Tree of Knowledge = any mention has implicit threat of serpent and consequent fall from grace
Anti-Female Literature because Women were seen as Inherently Evil & Sinful - the Original Sin and Women were called the ‘Daughters of Eve’ (society was highly religious and believed the Old Testament was real). Women were Mothers, Virgins or Prostitutes. This is highly different from ‘An Ideal Husband’ who had more respect for women’s moral power and roles as protectors of the home.
The pagan, classical and Christian allusions
The tale blurs moral clarity by invoking both pagan gods (Pluto and Proserpina) and Christian doctrine, suggesting that neither mythology nor religion can offer a coherent or authoritative framework for understanding love, fidelity, or gender dynamics.
Blurs conventions of genre by employing allusions: Garden of Eden, Damian and the serpent in the Tree of Knowledge, Song of Solomon
Importance of religion in his society - although Pavia was a place of commerce, but especially of prostitution & brothels (January thus has a sordid association) - medieval england was deeply religious = The Feudal System / The Three Estates: Aristocracy / Gentry / Landowners / Nobility, Clergy / Catholic Church (Catholicism was National Religion, and the Church was very wealthy = full belief in the old testament)
Monetising religion = corruption = Pilgrimages were very popular in 12th and 13th centuries but increasingly commercialised in the 14th = booming tourist sector with the monks of Cluny running a string of hotels in France and the Venetians offering a regular ferry service to and from the Holy Land
Pluto and Proserpina, May and January as representing Winter and Spring
The Garden of Eden, referred to in the Book of Genesis and Ezekiel
The Roman de la Rose – relevance to the tale
Drawing on Roman de la Rose’s allegorical garden of love and seduction, Chaucer parodies its idealized vision by transforming the garden into a site of physical lust, trickery, and power struggle between the sexes.
For Chaucer’s audience, January’s attempt to recreate The Roman de la Rose Garden is an example of hubris and his downfall richly deserved, May and Damyan’s endeavour to be courtly lovers would have been perceived as coarsely comic
Jean de Meun’s and Guillaume de Lorris’ allegory that echoes the garden of Eden in the late 1230s
In this story The Lover finds a walled garden belonging to the nobleman called Deduit - the Old French word for pleasure
The Garden of Love - ‘locus amoenus’ is a central motif in courtly love where all activities are chaste and their love is not consummated
This idea also features in The Knight’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales
*5Chaucer translated the French poem into Middle English**
Parallels can be drawn between Placebo and Justinus and Friend and Reason
In this tale, the garden is May’s domain: she freely gives Damyan a wax impression of the ‘clicket’ to the ‘smale wicket’ so that Damyan can make a copy and in doing so gives him access to the garden and her body
At May’s gesture to climb up the pear tree (a symbol of fertility that is quite phallic), Damyan fulfills his role as the ‘naddre’ = the serpent waiting up the tree to encourage May to taste the forbidden fruit of adultery
The Song of Solomon and how this is used in the tale
January quotes the Song of Solomon to sanctify his lust for May, but the misuse of this erotic scripture for self-justifying desire exposes the irony of biblical appropriation for personal gratification.
Also known as the Canticle of Canticles/Song of Songs is a series of lyrical poems that form a book in the Old Testament from the 10th century BC
Christians interpret it as describing the covenant of love between Christ and The Church
Collection of lyrical poems in the form of dialogue between two lovers in which they praise each other’s beauty and have sex in a garden
